Keeping it together

I am fighting self doubt with tiny, self-contained doodles today:

I'm also reading the blog posts of the wonderful new group of SAS Sketchers. They are making good art!

White space

Permission to rough draft

I had a whole morning to fail today. Time is a remarkable thing.

A new blog/website is in the works. Pieces of this will stay. And many pieces will go.

This is!

This is today:

This is good.

 

They came in threes

Three things happened today that make me wonder if Jonaca is right, and we should all be drinking bottled water so that we don't turn into planet Earth at the end of Stephen King's short story, "The End of the Whole Mess:"

1. I recycled some noticings from brilliant writer/chef/human JB, and spent far too much time watching Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes. She told me not to look them directly in the eyes, and I think J's right, as I just could not. get. enough. June Carter and Johnny Cash were resurrected in a hippie cult, and they were just singing their unshowered guts out. 

2. LM convinced me to sign up for the Happy 40th Birthday Hello Kitty run. For the t-shirt. And for the hope that we could subversively draw mouths on all the silenced kitty-people. I don't do races anymore unless they send me somewhere unusual and if I don't have to stand in a race pack line. You have not seen frustration until you've seen a Singapore Race Pack Line. And this Hello Kitty (oh my gosh--another cult!) race fits neither criteria. Ack. She better pick up my pack, as it's obvious Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes were clouding my thinking when I said yes.

3. Gus came home speaking of "Baby Big Boy" who dominates the coveted playground ball at recess and is neither boy nor baby. He is older than Gus yet an infant. Baby Big Boy has a mean face and a baby face. And he says, "thank you" when you return the ball to him---but it's in a kind baby voice. Yet he's big. As it's the ONLY shred of information he's provided about his pre-K career, I hung on every word. I know as much as you do, and yes, I will be lurking behind the playground at 9:45 tomorrow to find myself some Baby Big Boy.

Tomorrow I return to work where I'll get a daily dose of IQ. And to be on the safe side, I'll not be looking Baby Big Boy, Hello Kitty, or those Edward Sharpe people directly in the eyes. 

It's Just Great

Returning season is happening better than we expected. Last year I walked straight off the plane and to the ER, and then we had two months of Gus tearfully asking why he didn't live with Grandma and two months of me (tearfully) asking when was I ever going to get to draw, and six months of P not being able to lift his arms, and yet all the while he was having to smile at all of us and mutter, "this too shall pass" about 47 kajillion times while he walked down the street to find sanity at a friend's house where hopefully someone else would open the beer because his arms hurt too badly to do it.

This year, there is less muttering and way fewer tears and someone might even be healed enough for tennis. Hallelujah. We came back to two new jobs for me (and one of them is at home at this desk with lots of colored pencils and books on fonts and freshly typed pages of manuscripts. Wheeeee!) and to this:

We're not convinced he's not incontinent or partially blind or prone to spaniel rage, but in the words of the slow-drawling boiled peanut hawker that MS and I encountered in the Florida Keys thirteen years ago, "I luv 'em. Oh man, with a cold beer, I jus' luv 'em."

I'm not the only one. Gus dresses him as the Boy Wonder, carries him around awkwardly by his esophagus, and is greeted every day off the school bus by some serious tail wagging and irrational joy. There were no sad transition mornings weeping for the farm or rough evenings watching Gus pack a suitcase for a one way trip out of This House That is Not Washington. No, there was a new buddy to pat. And that is just great.

And for those of you that know anything about anything with this family, you'll know that the ultimate test of a dog's mettle is this:

I know. I can't believe it either.

There's so much we can't believe right now. LM returned to Singapore after we left for Europe and she left for North Africa, and now we're both back and in the same condo and meeting to run the same roads as we did years and years ago before a Gus and two continents (not incontinence) and collective home purchases and everyone's boys suddenly getting cheek bones and jawlines. It's just great.

Another friend marvel is that our best Prague neighbors have moved here too, and BB and I wander Chinatown and eat dumplings and talk about writing and books and art and design in the same meandering ways we discussed the same topics on snowy Stromovka mornings, pushing baby Gus in a stroller with croissants and Linzer cookies.

It's just great.

The amazing part is that it really feels like the greatness hasn't fully come, as we haven't had the time we want with our old friends, and I'm still juggling my days off to plan lessons, and we're all feeling our way through new classes and schedules and routines. But the months ahead hold infinite possibility, and Singapore has not always been a harbinger of hope for us. So, we're going to not worry that the dog is ruining the carpets we hand carried from Nepal or that he may have swallowed a Lego or that I'm writing about a dog's bladder when I should be posting art I've crafted. Instead, P gets to practice his ukulele and use his own arms to open doors, while Gus and I dress the dog, and we all sit in the glow of community and healing and potential and far less husband-worrying weeping. I'm going to celebrate the returning season, take a deep breath, and remind myself (often very loudly so that P doesn't start talking to himself or drinking his beer elsewhere) that everything right now feels Just Great.

 

The Goodbye Season

It's that time of year. We say goodbye. We get excited for hellos. We count down days until we're leaving and ignore days until we return. OG's countdown is on two hands. How will we sleep?

This year, I am blessed to say goodbye to someone pretty darn special:

I'm only leaving him for two floors up and a few hallways down, but when you plan daily, teach together often, and pop in and out of each others' classrooms forty times a day, it's a loss. 16 years ago, I was blessed to team with an amazing woman. She raised llamas. She danced at the salmon festival. She taught me about Terry Tempest Williams and Mary Karr and not being so scared all the time. I loved that lady and our accordian wall we'd push to the side so we could face all fifty of those rowdies at once. Since then, I've grieved losing that relationship. And this miraculous year, I had it again. Thanks, Bri.

Brian taught me to let kids see my love of words in all its embarrassing glory. Every birthday, we give each student a poem and read it aloud with gusto. It's not his birthday, but I'm going to read him some William Stafford:

I've never been comfortable with ceremony or spotlight. I don't like to talk about myself. But, I'm learning--slowly--that there's a place for ritual, for honor, and for public moments to celebrate a season. 

And of course, since I can't take anything too seriously without getting red-faced, I'll probably have to come home and make a list of what we'll do ten days from now when we sit on the hill, in Washington State, looking at Mount Cashmere: Legos. Slow Coffee. Legos. Fat Tires. Legos. Hike. Repeat.

Two hands!

Magic Babushka: She's back!

In places I used to live, May was the month where we all started wearing our summer clothes too early. Glaring white legs held firm in shorts and outdoor seating was used even when teeth were chattering. I waited for those lilacs and goldenrods to show themselves, so I could abandon leggings and freeze my way to June.

Not in Singapore. Singapore May is a cooker. It's a cruel month after three uncomfortable ones that's leading right into an even hotter June. It's the end of school, the end of any hope of a bearable cool-ish morning, and the end of deodorant by 9:00am. There are a lot of reasons to be fragile in Singapore Mays: Grade reports need written, dear friends are moving, families are worried about transcripts, students are tired, teachers are tired, people are bracing for six weeks of visiting families they rarely see (and by people---all you dear readers---I don't mean us. We're EMbracing!), and well...everyone is really really hot. Things can get kind of passive aggressive or just outright aggressive at work. I can always rely on one or two truly bonkers days and out-of-character outbursts. I pass out a lot of chocolate macaroons to my co-workers. It's May and it's getting weird.

Last week, I made a slide in my daily slide shows that had a lot of sad pugs on it. It seemed like a good weapon at the time for battling student angst, the heat, and my encroaching feeling of May doom:

The results of my pug warfare have yet to be seen (secretly hoping for a pug in a school uniform to show up in my classroom as the Best Teacher Gift Ever).

This week I tried something new and probably equally unhelpful. Long ago, as a comfort to my strange self, I started doodling Magic Babushka. She's so wise. May needs lots and lots of Magic Babushkas. For a date with two dear friends tomorrow, I have two tucked in my purse with back-up signs for them to hold, proclaiming very encouraging phrases:

I'm learning about Adobe Illustrator as I go, and mostly I'm learning that I don't know much. She started black and white:

And then I played:

If you're thinking that having two of these in my purse is proof of the May Bonkers, then I might concur. However, with any luck, they will laugh...and we will be seated somewhere under the air conditioning.

Best Gift Ever

Everyone is desperate to know if they are the lucky recipient of this. You'll just have to wait and see. I think you have a July birthday and know who usually gets the strange cut-out paper products:

If you look very closely, you'll see that to make the elephant howdah, "more cutting skills are needed."

Roy

Today we had a little bit of amazing.

I called Roy, a friend's delivery guy, to see if he could move some furniture for me. I had two cabinets to pick up at condos of people that were leaving Singapore. Roy seemed a bit confused. He wanted to know how I got his number and was a bit challenging to communicate with. Whatever. Accents on the phone are tough. The only thing that left me wondering was when I asked how much he charged and he said, "I've never done this job. You pay me what you want."

Roy showed up at the first condo all right; they called to confirm.

Roy showed up at the second condo, but my friend texted to say he seemed a bit flustered.

Roy showed up at our house.

His name is Myo Min Kyaw and he just got that phone number a few days ago. He's a foreign worker from Burma who got a random call in the middle of the day on the jobsite from a crazy expat woman calling him Roy and telling him she needed him to pick up furniture for her. He borrowed a lorry, drove all over town for probably the first time, and with a big grin delivered my items. 

The good news is that he seemed happy for the work and understanding of my embarrassment. He even took away our rusted out BBQ to sell for parts. "Roy" was honestly one of the nicest strangers I've ever met. We handed him a Coke, promised him we'd pass on his number, and shook our heads. 

Dreams

We did not bring Grampa home to stay. Grampa's eye-sight was too far gone for a rowdy four-year-old. Fetch would have been tragic, and he seemed a wee cranky. But, we did have a hilarious conversation with the dog adoption lady.

"What kind of dog are you looking for?"

"Well, we're not very picky. We just want to have a good dog. But it would be nice if it didn't bark. Or jump or lick. Or chew on anything. And we couldn't handle a dog that stunk or drooled. I'm not sure we really want a dog with a lot of energy, but we would like to take a dog on walks. Maybe a dog that likes to follow our son around? But isn't too needy? A friendly dog that likes to snuggle...but not a dog that will get on the furniture or anything..." It went on and on. She's a wonderful woman with a sense of humor, so she laughed very hard. 

While we wait for our mythical dog, we dream about art with inspiration from Peter Brown. This talented artist and writer came to school this week to work with lucky students, and I got to sit in on a quick and entertaining session of his. Amazing stuff!

Staying

Naming things is fun. Right now, it is our number one family activity. We're on a tentative dog hunt, and we've recently met an elderly little fellow that has no name and no home, and we're thinking of inviting him to stay a while to see if we can all make it work. As people that have deliberately dropped out of nearly every commitment possible except our jobs and evening dinner, acquiring any sort of obligation is completely whack-a-doodle. But the list is adorable. I'm a fan for real-people names: Brad, Mo, Gordon, Johnny Cash. P's are always a little exotic with a nod to former lives: Darko, Pivo, Tsunami. And Gus's, well Gus's are ridiculous: Doctor Donut, Po, Microwave, Doctor Microwave, Doctor Po, Miss Pearly (that's for you, KB!), and Grampa. The last one makes us laugh so hard, it might just win. This potential canine friend arrives as we re-sign our lease. This is significant because it is the first time in 24 years that I will have lived somewhere beyond 24 months. My adult life has no idea what that feels like. Today at sacred dinner time, P said earnestly, as if we were signing up to climb Everest or marathon across the Sahara, "I really hope we make it." I do too. For the first time ever, I don't want to pack up and find new digs. I'm voluntarily staying. This means something.

Maybe what will help us plant ourselves is something to name. Our strange little feat of strength is digging into community and getting a little dog hair in our tidy, transient lives. So, we're looking at happy-eyed orphans and wondering if they need to stay too. 

Doctor Donut (or Grampa?) and his two teeth.

 

 

Living the good

When you're not in a space of creating art, you take that season to savor good works of others. I'm learning from her daily practice.

You also take time to be with good people. It doesn't always go so well. Recently I read a book on some exercises to boost dear Gus's development. One of them had him lay in the middle of blanket. Then, I grabbed the four corners to make a bundle of Gus that I was supposed to swing around--stimulating his senses and turning him into an athletic genius. He shrieked like he was on fire and yelled, "I'm not a dumpling, I'm a boy!" For the rest of the evening, and well, at least once a day since, he's asked, "Remember the time you thought I was a dumpling mom? And you didn't know I was a boy?" Sigh.

You also might escape to good places. We're inadvertent jet-setters at this house. Chennai two weeks ago. Bali last weekend for me. And this weekend smart P is keynoting a conference in Hanoi. It sounds glamorous in print, but it's the same as driving four hours anywhere in the US and probably the same price as the cost of the gas. 

You eat good food.We have a new rule: You may not have any food or drink if you're consuming it on the run. If there isn't time to sit and to savor and hold a conversation with your loved ones, then you can just have water. We've been ten minutes later to work sitting with our coffees and a sleepy Gus, but I think we might be more sane.

You make good lists. And the top of the list has art projects. They will come. For now, we read, we talk, we listen. We try not to make Gus shriek. We enjoy what our Southeast Asia life has to offer. 

(I did a good job savoring this breakfast.)

 

 

 

We are back

It has been awhile, but I am back. We've been walking our way through the new year in hopeful steps. This is a season of mantras for us: reminders to be kind, to not take ourselves so seriously, to keep company with the wise, to avoid hot dogs (that Gus sure does like nitrites), and to spend time together doing what we love. I've been feeding my soul with Anne LaMott's newest, with good friends, and with a return to long trail runs. 

And while Chennai doesn't seem to be the best place for the latter, it was perhaps the most spectacular choice possible for everything else. There wasn't a hot dog in sight, and there was soul-feeding by the bucketload. It was a first solo getaway from Singapore for P and me, and it was beyond all expectations.

I like to think that as I get older, I get more tolerant all around. We all have quirks. We all have stories that have shaped us in strange ways. We are all--hopefully--doing the best we can with what we have. That tolerance is tempered with caution, and as my heart and time belongs to P and Gus, I'm grateful for the miracle of friendships where being me seems easy and not embarrassing even despite spans of time and miles. K and G are those rare gifts. And how can we not love people who have THIS waiting for us?

It's been many years since I could just sit and stare out of a tuk tuk at color and people and take time to wonder and not answer the four-millionth "why?" question from a curious G. I love that G. But I also love to stare.

We ate. We watched. We tried not to worry that we were causing a lot of inconvenience asking for kurtas to be unfolded and bedspreads to be opened and block prints to be unwrapped. I came home with treasures.

Time away and time with people that are doing great things in the world gave me hopeful thoughts. And some big ideas burbled. There's good paper in India. There's inspiration. There are places like this one taking on important projects and making stunning things:

It was also hopeful to learn that our adventure selves still exist. There's this reoccurring event that happens in my Southeast Asian travels. I call it the "awkward room." It's happened in Kathmandu and Chiang Mai. In Ubud and Sapa. At some point a stranger--usually a transport driver--leads us up a stairway or through an alley to some chairs and some more strangers. Often there is tea. A couple of times there's been unfortunate homemade whiskey. We have absolutely no idea why we are there. We sit and stare. I smile awkwardly. Someone summons someone else in to show us something. Art. A happy baby. Something carved out of wood. This time it was a French woman, who claimed to be a doctor despite looking 14 (I kept thinking of Dr. Piglet and Dr. Winston from Monty Python and the Holy Grail, "Please, we are doctors..."). The youngest-doctor-in-the-world was disheleved, holding a mewing newborn kitten, and talking about tuberculosis. For a long time. She was talking hard and holding that creepy cat. We'd been through the awkward room drill, so we nodded it out, waited for a pause, and excused ourselves. And while usually I like to avoid those moments, this one was really affirming. We were back! We were traveling! Once again we were somewhere and we had absolutely no idea what was going on! Yay!

Back in the oasis of their home, K and G talked printing presses, writing, ashrams, children's books to promote literacy, yoga, third-culture-kids, and more. We caught up on their children, our G, and what is good and hard. We ate paneers and drank homemade gingerale, and watched everyone from women in regal saris to dog-walkers with finicky pugs stroll the Bay of Bengal. 

And, we may have sat in a nice hotel and savored brunch. That's okay too, right?

I've lists of ideas, plans to outline for next year, and possibly a trip to Pondicherry to work out. My heart is full, my Gus was blase about our return (sad and affirming all at once), and it is a hopeful new month in the year of the horse. According to my Chinese calendar predictions, it's the year we dragons should be focusing on writing and paper products (no joke!). Amen!